Here’s the beef: Slow-cooked short ribs long on flavor

As good as pork ribs are, their dominance leaves their beefy cousins wallowing in near obscurity. That’s unfortunate because beef short ribs are among the tastiest cuts on the

planet.

The late Edna Lewis, a Southern culinary legend, is said not to have cared for beef in general, but she made an exception for beef short ribs. She loved the rich, intense flavor, and cooks in the know do, too.

As professional chefs have added more homey comfort foods to their repertoires in recent years, short ribs have made small inroads on restaurant menus.

Short ribs are best enjoyed now, while winter keeps temperatures low, in braised dishes that transform a tough cut of meat into a bit of superlative succulence.

Short ribs come from three parts of a steer: the chuck, rib and plate. No matter what section they come from, all short ribs are cut from the 12 ribs that start at the back and curve down around the belly.

The chuck actually us the shoulder. The rib is the top section just behind the chuck, and the plate is the lower section underneath the rib.

In stores, the packages of short ribs typically won’t pinpoint the section of the steer, though supermarkets tend to sell short ribs from the chuck, which is said to have the most flavor.

Packages often don’t even label the two different cuts of short ribs. The English-style are cut parallel to the rib bone and are either boneless or have just a bit of rib bone.

The other type, Flanken-style, are cut across the rib bone, so they will have a series of short rib bones in them. Both types work fine in most recipes, and both are cheap, typically selling for less than $3 a pound.

The meat in short ribs is well-marbled with fat, which makes it tasty. Short ribs also have a good bit of external fat.

This fat is best removed before cooking. Even then, the braising liquid should be skimmed to remove excess fat released during cooking.

The basic method for cooking short ribs is to sear them in oil and then simmer them in liquid. If that sounds like stew, it basically is.

Almost all short-rib dishes are at least cousins to stews, and short ribs actually make the tastiest beef stew — though that’s not what you usually get when you buy “stew beef” in a supermarket.

The beauty of short ribs is that slow cooking makes some of the most succulent, richest beef dishes imaginable. The hardest part about preparing short ribs is waiting for the meat to fall off the bone.

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